


The Shadow is an Echo

by Defira



Series: Love and Light in the Time of Zakuul [4]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Child Soldier, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Knights of the Fallen Empire, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 07:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11054298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defira/pseuds/Defira
Summary: He is a prince turned tyrant. She is a slave turned healer. He has been broken by hatred, she has been strengthened by it. They have nothing in common.They are more similar than they would imagine.The same stories resonate in different souls, the same songs play for a different heart





	The Shadow is an Echo

_Second time around, slightly off the beat, slightly off-key._

* * *

She is the youngest of three, and the odd one out from the moment she is born. The only girl child at that, and what a dark mark it casts over the family, who have struggled so much already in their difficult existence to bring her brothers some measure of comfort; what a burden it is to keep her safe, and to have the eyes of a brutish regime upon her from infancy.

She is born in the midst of a war, and the mercenaries who occupy their homes and their halls are gleeful at the profit their flesh will bring. Ryloth is never a prosperous planet, even in peacetime, and the Hutt’s enforcers go unchallenged as they break apart families and homes. Kala’uun is safer than the outlying villages, but a girl is always a valued commodity- and there is no such thing as too young for her to be aware of the burden she is.

It is a heavy weight for a child to bear, but she has known no life without it.

She will be raised in fear, and it is expected.

* * *

He is the middle of three, and the odd one out from the moment he is born. The weakest and least significant, and what a shameful mark it casts over his family, his worth unquestionable had he been born to another house or another name; what a prodigy he might have been, had he been given the support to prove himself worthy of such a birthright.

He is born in the midst of preparations for war, and his father looks to Thexan alone to be a figurehead in the years to come, not to him. Zakuul will be the centre of the galaxy in the decades to follow, and his brother will be responsible for ushering in a new era of prosperity and glory- and there is no such thing as too young for him to be aware of his shortcomings.

It is a heavy weight for a child to bear, but he has known no life without it.

He is a prince, and it is his birthright.

* * *

She is four, and she is a child. Her age means nothing to the mercenaries who leer at her, the cruel men who drag citizens away to the slave pens, who run the whole planet at the whims of the Hutts. As long as the slugs get their profits, they don’t have a care for how their merchandise is treated, and if there are plundered temples and stolen artworks being shipped offworld with the slaves, there’s no one in a position to put a stop to it. Those who try, be they priestess or teacher or matriarch or farmer, usually end up being shipped out with the same old dusty relics they tried to save.

She wants to be loved, to play with her brothers and listen to her father’s music, to do her lessons and race with the other children in the dusty streets inside the mountain.

Instead she is scolded for the bloodied nose the mercenary gave her, when she bit him to escape. She is a troublemaker, and there is no time for innocence.

* * *

He is four, and he is a child. His age means nothing to his trainers and tutors, the distant men and women who prop him up on display for his father, who preen and posture for the Emperor’s attention while he struggles with his lessons. The war beyond their borders weakens the galaxy, and there is no time for play and whimsy, not when there is an Empire to be forged.

He wants to play, to run through the gardens of the palace with his brother and sister, to shriek and climb and roll in the grass; he is a mawvorr, then a robot, then a great force wielding wizard.

Instead he is cuffed over the back of the head for his inability to grasp the lessons, and belittled until he cries. He is a prince, and there is no time for failure.

* * *

She is eight, and she hides from men three times her age, and more. She tries to make herself small smaller smaller, head down and hands shaking and never make eye contact, never give them a target. She is tired, always on edge and always frightened, and with every errand her parents send her on to the markets she has to find new ways to run home, new paths to take so as not to lead them after her. She has bruises, and scars, and she has learned the hard way not to cry.

Ryloth doesn’t belong to the twi’leks, and it hasn’t for a very long time. Their lives are not their own, always a potential commodity, always a potential profit, and she learns to hate just to stay alive. Hate the Hutts, hate the mercenaries, hate the weak and cowardly men and women who look the other way while her people suffer.

She cannot understand.

So she keeps her head down, and learns what lessons she can- how to shoot and how to shout, because if she can’t beat a bully with a lethal weapon then maybe she can beat them with words. Her brothers, disgruntled rebels in the making, are her shield, her weapon, her sanctuary.

They are all of them bruised and bitter, and she endures.

But the cracks begin to grow.

* * *

He is eight, and he must fight off men three times his age. He and his brother try to stand back to back, facing out at the ring of assailants as they slowly advance, and he struggles to stand his ground. He is tired, his hands aching as his fingers grip desperately at the smooth hilt of the practice staff. He has blisters, and a black eye, and he has learned the hard way not to cry.

His father watches from above, detached and uninterested, a shadowy presence tugging at the edge of his awareness. Enough to make him nervous, enough to send a shiver of panic through his blood. A reminder of his weakness, his failures, that he is not the son his father wanted.

He cannot fail.

So he keeps his feet under him, as the faceless men in masks attack him- twice his height and three times his age, and a dozen of them to face the two brothers, because if he can’t prove himself a dozen times over then what good is he? And Thexan, always Thexan, dearest desperate wonderful brother who is always there to block the blow that would have left him unconscious and humiliated. His brother is his shield, his weapon, his sanctuary.

He falls, and he is ashamed.

But his brother loves him still.

* * *

She is ten, and the laughter of her brother jesting with strangers makes her flinch. Nuro is seventeen, and has befriended some of the Hutt enforcers who have made Ryloth their home. They play cards together in the sanctuary of her parent’s front room, they drink and laugh and yell, and when she tries to whisper to her parents that she does not like them being there, she is hurriedly hushed, lest the thugs overhear her.

 _They’re stuck here just like we are, numa_ , Nuro says as he crouches before her. _They gave up the lives they had to support their families. They love, just like we do._

She loves her brother, but he frightens her now.

They wear no slave collars, but there is a word for people like Nuro, an unkind word, _a’valli_. It has many meanings, and it is a word for those who bow to unlawful rule, for those who crawl before slavemasters out of choice; it is a word for cowards and sycophants, a reminder of all that has been endured by their people, of what Nuro chooses to dismiss. She wears no headpiece, and no jewellery, because her mother insists that she will draw more attention if she glitters, if she shines.

She sees pictures of dancers who look like her, covered in gold and glitter and silk, beautiful women. She wears baggy hand-me-downs from her brothers, brown and worn, and she still can’t escape the leering mockery of the Hutts’ enforcers.

She wants to shine.

* * *

He is ten, and the laughter of his mother playing with his sister makes him flinch. Vaylin is five, and is so very clearly their mother’s favourite that it makes him shake with envy. They do not speak of it in the nursery, in the darkness of their room at night, because if Vaylin is mother’s favourite and Thexan is father’s favourite, then what is he? He doesn’t know what to do when he struggles- when his temper gets the better of him and he falters- but Thexan is always there to hold his hand patiently, a weight and an anchor to tether him to the world.

 _They just don’t understand_ , his brother says, as they hide beneath the covers of Arcann’s bed. _They’ll see how good you are one day. They’ll be proud, just like I am._

He loves his brother, his rival, but he should despise him.

Their rings of statehood, proclaiming their place in the Empire, marks of status and rank, never feel comfortable to him, as if the weight is not intended for him. It’s Thexan’s idea to swap them, to see if his fits better for him, and every time he grows too anxious they swap them back again. He wears his brother’s ring more often than he wears his own, his fingers twisting it slowly on his hand whenever they are parted.

He is wearing his brother’s ring when they craft their first lightsaber together, the glow of the blade reflected in the rings. The glow is warm and comforting, and he can’t see a weapon so much as a light in the dark.

He wants to glow.

* * *

She is twelve, and she is _terrified_.

The music in the bar doesn’t drown out the sounds of violence, and the grunts and snarls and howls of the two bounty hunters rattles through her brain. She is light-headed from hunger and blood loss; she thinks it’s been days since she last ate, something she stole off the floor and it wasn’t like they were feeding her well before she escaped. There are screams and gasps from the crowd, and a wild howl from one of the hunters, and she flinches and hunches down behind the shipping crate, eye squeezed tight shut as if she’s going to cry, but she’s too dehydrated to cry.

She feels empty, hollow- she doesn’t even have hate to empower her right now. Nuro had promised their parents he would accompany her to the markets, sullen and surly and twitchy in a way that always made her nervous these days. Nuro had _lied_. Her brother had found himself buried in a mountain of debt, coaxed into gambling away more than he had against the mercenaries he had befriended, and so he’d done the only thing he could to clear the debt and stop them from killing him.

He’d sold her to them.

She thinks it has been weeks, maybe. They drugged her to make her pliant during the handover, and she has no idea how many days she lost while they carted her off planet like a _toy_ , like a _thing_ , not like a living sentient girl with her own hopes and dreams and fears. She remembers crying so much, and being struck for it, being told to shut up. She remembers screaming and spitting and snarling like a lylek, of biting a hand so hard that the blood made her throw up. There are things she doesn’t want to think about, pain and betrayal and terrifying loneliness- and yet from somewhere, she found the strength to crawl away from them, to slink through the shadows and find her way to someplace that wasn’t _there_. She has no idea where she is, or where to go, and almost no one can speak in a civilised tongue.

The sounds of fighting stop, and she can hear someone moaning beyond her hiding place, and she wonders whether she shouldn’t have made a break for somewhere. The neon lights pulse and swarm in her blurred vision. Movement out of the corner of her eye makes her tense and whimper, as the largest woman she has ever seen lumbers around the side of the shipping container and crouches down at the end of the gap.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whispers, the thump and thud of the grinding music making her teeth ache. She looks terrifying, her face bloodied and her nose crooked. “ _Please_.”

The woman cocks her head to the side, her accent broad as she says first one unfamiliar word and then “Huttese?”

Everyone knew Huttese on Ryloth- it was a matter of survival. You had to know what the thugs were yelling after you as they laughed and loitered in the streets and markets. You had to know when to run, when to freeze, when to keep your head down. When to _fight_. “I know a little,” she says, trying not to shiver with unspent adrenalin as the woman reaches forward for her hand. She allows herself to be coaxed from her hiding place, near to tears and beyond exhausted. She just wants to sleep, and she wants food so badly she feels sick, and she wants to cry and cry and cry in the hope she can forget this nightmare, wash it out of her body with the tears.

It’s not going to happen, of course- the woman is a bounty hunter, so of course she’s going to hand her back to the thugs as soon as-

She nearly shrieks as the woman drapes her coat around her shoulders, the jacket so big that she could easily use it as a sleeping bag. It smells of her, of sweat and blood and smoke, and it’s _warm_ ; she hadn’t realised she was cold.

“You’re Kol’aya?”

The words are blunt, but gentle, and she blinks in confusion. “Yes?”

“It’s alright, you’re safe. We’re gonna get you somewhere where your old boss can’t find you.”

She has never fallen in love before, but there is a first time for everything, and she loves this woman, this stranger with the bloodied nose who fought to keep her safe. This strange woman with a booming laugh and gentle arms, who feeds her and carries her to a ship and takes her home without even questioning it. It surprises her, how easy it is to fall in love, how desperately she wants to stay with Ysaine. She screams when Ysaine leaves Kala’uun, sobbing before the door has even closed behind her.

* * *

He is twelve, and he is _terrified_.

He is slower than his brother, clumsier with a blade; he struggles to adapt to their lessons, and with far less tact and enthusiasm. Thexan’s patience seems endless, his gentle insistence on helping him almost unbearably humiliating, and his frustrations become harder and harder to hide. While Thexan chatters away in a dozen languages, and can solve quantum mathematical equations faster than their teachers, Arcann struggles. He is far better at biological sciences, but his father dismisses this as a pointless skill. It is the domain of lesser beings, of those who cannot rely on the Force to do their work. For years now, he has endured the mockery that he is lesser, weaker, undeserving.

Whatever it is that Valkorion wants to see in him, he is unable to find it.

When the Scions speak of fate and prophecy, their father listens, and he is not only frightened for himself- he is frightened for his brother. They are dragged before him like the errant children that they are, disappointments both, and their father’s silence is agonizing.

They stand like two little soldiers- for that is what they are, are they not?- and he can see Thexan trembling out of the corner of his eye. Is it rage? Is it fear? Is his control about to break?

“It was my idea,” Thexan blurts into the silence, surprising him. He cannot believe that Thexan would risk so much for him. “It was my fault, not his.”

The unspoken ‘ _do not hurt him_ ’ hangs in the air, pathetic and jagged and desperate.

The silence deepens, lengthens; he does not cry, for he has learned not to cry, but his eyes burn all the same. A rustle of fabric, the creak of leathers, and he knows their father is standing.

“I do not abide weakness.”

Panic swells in him, desperation. Thexan too, as he says “Father, it was-”

“You simper and grovel for another like a starving dog.” His father’s words lash against him like a whip. Of course he is worthless, and it is only a matter of time before his brother notices it too. “You allow a parasite to grow in your side, and beg me to ignore how it weakens you.”

A shadow falls across him, and he dares not look up. “You are both pathetic,” their father says flatly, no emotion as he addresses them. “You will be separated. For the next year, you will live and train alone.”

His father has already called him weak, so it makes no difference when he weeps and screams as Thexan is led away from him. He is left alone, standing before his father in the terrifying immensity of the throne room. He hates the throne room, so empty and dark and full of power that throbs and pushes at him like a headache trying to beat its’ way into his skull from the outside. He stands in the darkness, shivering, as Thexan’s cries vanish into the distance.

“He will take the throne.”

His stomach lurching, he looks up, to find the silver eyed leader of the Scions standing beside his father. Silver eyes and gold eyes and he hates them both, he fears them both- they look at him like he is an insect skewered to a board, watching as he squirms, assured in the knowledge that they are far wiser and smarter and better than he is. Sniffing, he wipes his arm over his face. “What?” he says, in a very small voice.

Neither of them seem to want to acknowledge him. “You are certain of this?” Valkorion says instead, cold and detached and terrifying.

Heskal nods, and with such a simple gesture Arcann feels iron bands wrap around his chest, suffocating him. “We have seen it,” he says, with the sort of lofty assurance that dares anyone to call his declarations into question. “There will be a great price, but this one will sit on the throne and be called Emperor.”

Not Thexan? The thought makes him panic. “I- I don’t want to be emperor,” he says, trying very hard not to start crying again.

“The fates cannot be questioned, _boy_ ,” Heskal says, with the same sort of disdain in his voice one might reserve for something found on the bottom of his shoe.

He has never known the full power of hate before, but there is a first time for everything, and he hates these men, one who calls himself father and one who calls himself mentor. These cruel and calculating men with cold eyes and colder hearts, who feed off of his fear and his panic and inform him tersely that they have planned his life for him. It surprises him, how easy it is to fall into that darkness, how desperately he wants to stay with Thexan. But he doesn’t scream when they lead him away to his first year alone, because he won’t give them the satisfaction.

* * *

She is eighteen, and she is a fully qualified nurse. Years of tireless study sees her finish her schooling by fifteen, and accepted to the college by sixteen. She may not be able to fight the occupation with a blaster, but there are more ways to be defiant than there are stars in the sky, and she will never accept the rule of another ever again.

She is to be a healer, a doctor eventually, and she must fight every inch of the way to be taken seriously, and to be allowed the opportunities more readily offered to humans. She wants to heal, to nurture.

Her oldest brother dies, and his mercenary friends say it was suicide even while they laugh in her parents’ faces. Coruscant has fallen, and the galaxy knows the agony of peace enforced at the end of a blade.

She refuses to let them win, and she boards a shuttle for Nar Shaddaa within a year.

She does not look back.

* * *

He is eighteen, and he is a Prince. His father is impatient to begin their expansion, and so no longer is he kept sheltered behind the walls of the palace. He might not be able to fight his father openly, but there are more ways to be defiant than there are stars in the sky, and he will never allow the burden of fate to rule over his life.

He is to be a General, a Field Marshal, and he must prove himself worthy to lead their armies. Thexan stands at his side again, his equal, his brother, his dearest friend. Thexan who has been allowed freedom these last six years that he has not.

His little sister is gone, and his mother has abandoned them with nothing to suggest that she cares in the slightest.

He refuses to let the abandonment weaken him, and they take their first sector within a year.

He does not back down.

* * *

She is twenty-two, and she has fought for every inch of ground she has claimed, halfway through a medical degree at one of the most prestigious universities in the galaxy. She has survived brutalities that would have seen others give up a hundred times over, from every moment of lustful violence thrown at her by voracious, angry men to every moment of condescending doubt she must endure from human professors and authorities, who cannot imagine that a poor twi’lek from Ryloth could possibly be a star pupil in the complex field of galactic standard medicine.

It is frustration without end, and she cries herself to sleep more often than she would like to admit to. Her brother’s death brought only a brittle, silent anger to her home, her parents ashamed and angry and awkward and with nowhere to put such painful emotions; they put them on her, instead. If she had not been foolish enough to let him trick her in the first place, if she had not run home in the arms of a bounty hunter after, if she had not stood every morning as a reminder of his avarice and cowardice, he might not have dug himself in deeper, he might still be alive, the ifs and the maybes piled up around her until she was drowning in them.

Ysaine had offered her a way out, a chance to live without the spectre of her brother’s crimes hanging over her and she’d leapt at the chance. Nar Shaddaa had been exquisite, a place of dance and drink and glitter and oh, how she’d shone. She grew less afraid of being twi’lek, and more proud of being herself.

Nuro dies, and she begins to live.

A year or so of working in the free clinic Ysaine knows in the entertainment district, and she’s well placed to apply for scholarships. It’s hard to get people to take her seriously, because no one cares overly about her qualifications on Ryloth, and nobody seems to think a penniless twi’lek has any place walking in the halls of one of the most exalted halls of learning in the galaxy.

One by one, she wears them down. Year by year, she proves herself, climbing higher in the class rankings, fighting tooth and nail for every afterthought they throw her way.

She loves every victory, but she is exhausted.

She finds herself gradually growing more aggressive, more confident- she will not lower her head, and she will not hold her tongue. She will shine.

* * *

He is twenty-two, and he has fought for every inch of ground he has claimed, halfway through the quiet, darker regions of space as they burn beneath his march. He has enacted brutalities that would have shredded his heart in his chest, if he still had one, and the Republic and the Sith Empire are too caught up in their own squabbles to feel the ripples of his approach, like the tide retreating rapidly from the shore in warning of the coming tsunami.

Each new world falls into line in time, in brutal supplication to a far superior force or in burning defiance to the last man. He feels it all, the ebb and flow of the Force, the surging seething hunger that comes with violence, and the brittle numbing calm that comes with surrender. _With surrender. Weakness_. He cannot abide weakness, not when it can be a reflection on him, and the wild highs and lows that he succumbs to are a welcome distraction from considering his father’s disdain for him.

A great deal of it is deliberate, on his part- he will not be his father’s perfect heir, he will not be some sycophantic golden prince who trots along at the pace of destiny, waiting patiently for his turn to sit obediently on the throne as commanded. He wonders what it will take to break his father’s determination, and the seething displeasure in Heskal’s eyes every time he is summoned home is a gift.

This should be a sign of victory for him, but for their father, it is merely an opportunity to crush his spirit under heel. A formality to observe- because of course they needed to conquer their neighbours before they could move on to the bickering, weakening galaxy. And he is a fool, such a painfully, _stupid_ fool, to imagine that his efforts could ever be seen as anything more than lacklustre, that his defiance could be seen as anything more threatening than a tantrum.

The galaxy begins to fall, and he is still not allowed to control his own destiny.

The list of his failings is never ending, and he sits with growing hate and anger through each conference with his father. He is never satisfied, never willing to accept the trophies his sons bring him without finding fault. He has been given explicitly clear goals, without compromise, and no matter how many victories he achieves, the goal posts always move.

Thexan does not take to such lectures with the same burning frustration that he does. With their Empire growing, his quiet moods grow more extensive, a bleak and empty cold that seems to be hollowing him out from the inside out.

He loves his brother, but he is beginning to frustrate him.

He finds himself keeping his own counsel, more often than not, and twists his brother’s ring around on his finger until the skin breaks. He no longer wants to glow.

* * *

She is twenty-four, and she is one of the youngest ever to graduate with a doctorate of medicine from Lorrd University. The Sith Empire is hardly the ideal place to undergo her studies, not for a girl with a badly inked slave marking on her forehead, but she does not have the luxury of choice. She is to graduate with the highest honours, and she has placement offers at numerous hospitals throughout the sector, but it still not enough.

“Your forehead,” the Dean says, frowning in the same manner that one might frown at an incorrect dish set out by the wait staff. “Can you not do something about it?”

As if it was simply some poorly applied makeup; humans frustrate her _so much_. “I was not aware my physical appearance held any bearing over my ability to receive my qualifications,” she says, hands clasped loosely behind her back.

The Chancellor stands by the window, observing the coming and going of the students. Her sigh is dramatic, pointed. “You must understand,” she says, turning to face the room, “that as a world aligned to the Empire, there are certain... expectations-”

“You can’t be shown letting a slave succeed in life,” she finished for them, more level-headed than she believed herself capable of. “Can’t be giving those uppity slaves a reason to think there’s something better out there for them, right?”

With her doctorate essentially being held hostage from her, she finds a twi’lek artist on the outskirts of the city who specialises in what she needs done. The mark becomes hidden beneath swirling lines of black dots, tracing down the length of her lekku as if she had been born with the markings.

She changes herself, changes her body, to fit into their world. To be accepted.

She holds her head high as she stands on stage, accepting the awards and the accolades due to her without once dropping her gaze. The slave mark is hidden beneath her tattoos- but her skin shines with the shimmering oils of her homeworld, sparkling like a precious stone beneath the spotlights. There are tattoos on her legs too, which are easily visible beneath the graduation robe that she shortened extensively the night before.

She can see how angry the Chancellor is, smiling through gritted teeth.

She shines.

* * *

He is twenty-four, and he has found that there are better ways to let the Force flow through him than the teachings of his father’s sycophants. The Eternal Empire is built on the power of faith, on the assumption that the more radically one commits oneself in service to the emperor, the greater one’s powers will be; he hates his father, _loathes_ him with the entirety of his being, and he finds that the moments when he rages are the moments when he finds untapped potential within himself. He lashes and lunges with all the untamed fury of a hurricane; he finds the darkness waiting to embrace him, and he revels in it.

“Your eyes,” Thexan says, his tone as careful as a man trying to make his way through an unmarked minefield. “Does it hurt when it happens?”

As if it was as simple a sensation as pain; his brother frustrates him _so much_. “I am not aware of it anymore than you are aware of the beating of your heart,” he says, head bowed over his lightsaber as he meticulously cleans it.

He is a killer, an animal, a creature caged and lashing out at his father’s ambition. He does not lie to himself and hope that there is something in him that might be considered good. He was never allowed to be good.

That does not mean he will allow himself to be brainless with loyalty- and so he pushes and sneers, offering petulance instead of respect, and he loves his brother. His mastery of the Force is hardly remarkable, but he does not wield it with care, as his siblings do. It is a weapon, just like him.

War is coming, and he does not allow himself to be used.

He can see his father turn away in silence, judging him without speaking.

His eyes glow.

* * *

_Not in tune, not on the beat. One part of the melody came in five years late._

* * *

He is twenty-eight, and it is _time_.

* * *

She is twenty-eight, and she is- _wait_. No, she is thirty-three. She is thirty-three when the Eternal Empire claims her home.

* * *

He is a Prince, a General, and his presence strikes fear on battlefields across the galaxy. The Republic crumbles and the Sith fall, and their march across the stars is unstoppable. Weakened from their incessant squabbling over the last fifty years, neither are fit to stand against the might of the Eternal Empire.

He kills the generals, the captains, the leaders. The population of each planet falls in line with no one to guide them towards petty rebellion. When he encounters those whose names have become legend, he does his best to destroy them, and prove that he is a far more worthy figure to stand in their myths. It is how his father came to power, after all, by toppling a god- and the Battlemaster will be the jewel in his crown.

 _You cannot deny your destiny_ , he hears in his dreams, in whispers when he thinks he is alone, _and the harder you fight, the greater the price you must pay_.

The cost, when it comes, is far more painful than anything he could ever have imagined- his arm gone, his body broken, a waking nightmare of pain unceasing and humiliation without end. Except that he is _wrong_ , because he survives the nightmare only to find himself lost in a greater horror, one of his own pathetic, pitiful making.

Thexan dies in his arms, his own beautiful, blessed brother, felled by his blade. He can feel the strike, the burn of the saber in his belly, as if he was the one who had taken the injury. He feels him fade, the one person who loved him, the one who called him favourite.

He fades.

He dies.

He is alone, and the throne beckons.

* * *

She is a twi’lek, a freed slave, and her presence is met with derision and mockery even after people recognise her qualifications. She has the ruthless pleasure of being one of the most celebrated surgeons in the galaxy, called a prodigy by some. But it has been years without reprieve, a fight every single day to learn and to teach and to heal, and she has not the patience for fools who want to leer at her short skirts rather than listen to her surgical consultations.

She heals civilians, children, slaves. The loyalty of each world is of no consequence to her, she tends to Imp and Pub and every person in between. When she encounters those whose loyalties lie with the Hutt Cartel, she does her best to work alongside them, and keep her opinions to herself. There is no moral compass to her medicine- she does not deny her skills based on any political alignments, especially not when the Cartel collapses in on itself, and a hundred worlds or more take the opportunity to try to break out from under the yoke of the slugs’ control.

 _Here is our chance for freedom_ , she thinks, and it comes on the tides of war.

The offer does not take her by surprise, when it comes- it is, if anything, painfully frustrating how much she feels obligated to take the role. The Minister for Health in the fledgling Ryloth government, and even though she despises the mire of bureaucratic process, she cannot deny the good she might do for her people in such a position.

She fights to implement change, and remembers that there are more ways to fight a war than with a blaster. She fights for her _people_ , even if so many of them would never have fought for her, the silly little girl with too much glitter, with too much sass, the troublemaker in the market.

She stands before a bully far stronger than herself, and refuses to back down. The indifference of the Republic, the avarice of the Hutts, the cruelty of the Sith.

And then the claustrophobic disdain of Zakuul, declaring her theirs, declaring her a _thing_.

She runs.

She keeps company with bizarre company these days- sith and jedi and princes and mandalorians- so perhaps she’s allowed a little vanity. Maybe she’s allowed to be proud to be singled out, instead of ashamed that she ran and left others to suffer in her place. Every step of the journey has been a battle, from parents who found her too difficult to brothers who found her more useful as a commodity to teachers who found her too aggressive to immortal warlords who want to claim her as her own.

Rishi is not her first choice for sanctuary, but she is close to Ysaine, and that counts for something. But she wants to matter, she wants to be seen as a person, not an object to be possessed and controlled.

There are more ways to fight back than with a blaster.

* * *

It has taken five years of brutal control over the galaxy, and he knows he has lost himself. The wound in his soul festers far more than the injuries he has sustained on the battlefield ever could, and though he fought through the maiming on the red sands of Korriban that should have killed him, he cannot heal the rage burning through him. He cannot soothe the terror in him, the terror of a beaten child, cowering away from the proof of his father’s survival.

The rebellion flourishes, and every time he tightens his grasp, more cracks appear. There are more nights where he cannot sleep, panic and fear and anxiety making him insensible. More days where he cannot eat, his stomach burning with an old, imagined pain, a phantom death blow. More days where he tears off the mask, suffocating and frightened.

He is a monster, and if the galaxy hates him, it is no more than he loathes himself.

The end does not take him by surprise, because he had long planned for this- if anything, it is wretched how easily it comes to pass. Their father’s continued preference for the Outlander is excruciating, but is expected. So too is the Wrath’s deathblow.

He is too frightened to die, but he’s so tired of living.

He runs.

He stands, he is calm, Vaylin soaring through the air, their mother with her hands outstretched in supplication, and he reaches for the desperation in his loneliness and he pushes backwards, Vaylin’s rage is under his skin and burning at his bones, the seething surge of the Force as he tries to stand firm against her plummet into the abyss, he is calm, he is dying, he is desperate to protect his mother-

He is surprised by how much it hurts, to die, and his brother has been avenged now, and then-

* * *

_Two dissonant chords, strangely harmonious, syncing up for the first time._

* * *

The first thing he is aware of is the fact that he is warm.

It isn’t a monumental discovery, in the grand scheme of things- being aware of temperature- but it seems to be rather significant because of the fact that it is something he is conscious of. He is finally aware of the world around him again, even if he doesn’t understand the implications of that.

From warmth comes a sensation of discomfort, and the awareness of his body. Cramped, aching, battered, bruised. Everything hurts. Not enough to drag himself upwards to proper wakefulness, but enough to make his sluggish thoughts begin to fit together into coherence again.

Warmth and pain. He doesn’t feel panicked, and he feels like he should. It is difficult to try and cobble together his thoughts and his memories into something that makes sense, something that would explain his current predicament and the lingering sense of dread that wants him to panic.

The pain is distant, though, as if it is just a warm blanket enveloping him and not anything he can pinpoint. He can’t acknowledge it and go ‘ _that is my foot_ ’ and ‘ _that is my shoulder_ ’. It is everything, and everywhere, and it isn’t overwhelming but it is just consistent. Trying to focus on any part of it particularly seems like an impossibility.

Until it very abruptly isn’t.

It feels like a jolt, like an electric surge but not really painful, and he is suddenly very aware of his- left arm? He doesn’t have a left arm, he hasn’t had a left arm for years, not since Korriban, not since long before he lost Thexan- _Thexan_ \- and the cybernetic replacement he’s worn in the time since was torn violently from his body in the cataclysmic destruction of his flagship weeks earlier when his mother- _his mother_ \- had risked everything to save him-

- _mother_.

He pushes upwards with determination now, past the fog that wants to keep him incoherent. He can feel again, feel his fingers and his toes and the throbbing ache in his head and the throbbing ache in his shoulder. He can feel a blanket over his lower half, and he can feel the soft heat of something bright above him, something like a light.

He can feel someone’s hands.

“... testing the connection between aurek five and six, now, Mako.” A voice, unfamiliar, accented. Not Zakuulan. Not Voss. Not his mother. Lilting, a slight drawl to the vowels. He feels the same surge again, like a twinge, and his fingers twitch- _fingers_. He has _fingers_ again. _He has a left arm_. “Response to physical stimuli confirmed.”

“Neural responses showing normal,” says another voice, also unfamiliar. Different accent, sharper, more common. Still not his mother. “Feedback between brain tissue and cybernetic interface showing as green across the board.”

_What is going on?_

“Moving on to next port,” says the first voice. He feels hands, cool and firm, slender fingers. “Aurek six to- oh. You’re not supposed to be up yet.”

His eyes are foggy, and he is terrified for a moment that he’s lost sight in both of them. There is a shape looming above him, a face maybe. He blinks, lips parting as he tries to speak. His body apparently has no plans to cooperate, because nothing comes out, but he feels a pinch in the side of his neck.

“There we go,” the voice says again. Gentle. “Back to sleep for you.”

He tries to look upwards, tries to speak. Dark brown eyes, warm and soft and crinkled with concern. Gentle fingers on his skin.

“Hey, Kol? Want me to call Izzy, let her know he’s coming round? She can let Lady Ona’la know.”

The eyes are gone, and it is harder to stay focussed.

“Not yet. Give him more time.”

He sleeps.


End file.
